Rauner: State will stop withholding union fees from nonmembers; workers will be 'given an opportunity to modify their union status'

Andrew Harnik / AP

Gov. Bruce Rauner speaks outside the Supreme Court after the court ruled in a setback for organized labor that states can't force government workers to pay union fees on June 27, 2018.

Gov. Bruce Rauner speaks outside the Supreme Court after the court ruled in a setback for organized labor that states can't force government workers to pay union fees on June 27, 2018. (Andrew Harnik / AP)

Illinois public workers who pay so-called fair share union fees won’t have that money deducted from their paychecks soon, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that public workers shouldn’t have to pay into a union they don’t want to join.

The idea behind the fair share fees is that unions negotiate on behalf of all employees within a workplace, and workers who benefit from bargaining should help cover that cost even if they don’t agree with the union’s politics. The high court found that the fees violate workers’ First Amendment rights to free speech.

Gov. Bruce Rauner on Wednesday also said the state will stop withholding fair share fees from paychecks of workers who are not in a union. He said state employees will be notified of the ruling and “given an opportunity to modify their union status.”

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees represents more than 75,000 public employees in Illinois. More than 90 percent of them are members of the union and pay usual dues, spokesman Anders Lindall said.

For the 10 percent who aren’t members and pay fair share fees instead of typical union dues, Wednesday’s ruling means those fees won’t be deducted from their next paycheck, Lindall said.

Current dues-paying members also could drop off the membership rolls, and some might be inclined to do so now that they won’t have to pay fair share fees. Lindall said nonmember fees are set by each local, of which there are hundreds in Illinois, and usually amount to about 80 percent of member dues.